On today’s Raw Reading, Alida Winternheimer reads from her current work-in-progress, working title, Playing with the Wind.

Playing with the Wind is a historical novel set in 1920s and 1930s Minnesota. After watching the video clip, read the author’s reflections on this particular text.

Raw Reading

Reflection

In today’s Raw Reading, I share a scene in which one of my supporting characters stands in a job line. He gets into trouble with the other men in the line and the outcome is not pretty. 

My goal with this scene is to show how the continual pressure and pain of difficult times affects people. John’s behavior is questionable, maybe even dishonorable, but does he deserve to be beaten? 

Although John is the point of view character and here, and therefore the one readers are identified with, he is a supporting character. Readers may disapprove of him strongly enough to side with the other men in line, even the ones throwing punches. But John is the character they get to go home with, the one they understand. Because readers will have enough of his story to understand his desperation, they should sympathize with him, even if they don’t approve of him. 

Even scenes like this, concerned with a supporting character, need to serve the larger story. Besides glimpsing more of the world my characters inhabit, this scene will help further complicate my protagonist’s life. John has to take his bruises home, to his wife, to the house they share with others. The bruises are outward signs of his shame, not over taking a beating, and not even over the trick he tried to play, but over the failure that put him in that job line in the first place.

The thing is, the failure is not his. It is the system’s, the world’s, and it’s happening everywhere and its repercussions affect everyone.

This is a first draft. To what extent these words will need revision later remains to be seen. All material herein is copyrighted. © Alida Winternheimer 2021